just wondering

cabal001

they say your first mmo is the best. how many of us still lament the passing of swg because it was our first mmo?

Kazara

I played AC1 for 3 years or so, then played AC2 for 5-6 months, UNTIL the devs did a major class revamp of that game June '03 (just a few days before SWG release) which prompted me to cancel and join SWG at launch. AC2 lost a lot of players then, and finally ended up having the plug pulled due to extremely low player/subscriber numbers sometime later. They hoped to recover, but never did. Sounds similar to the SWG/NGE fiasco, except SWG can leech off Station Pass income and remain on life-support indefinitely.

Edit: SWG was not my first mmo, but it stands as the greatest mmo when compared to all the mmos I have played before and since. Sadly, the way mmo's are being developed now, it could very well be my last, great mmo 'love'. SWG Pre-CU may have had its 'problems', but the game fostered a level of community/immersion unparallled in the other games I have experienced.

Shifty360

SWG was not my first MMO but the first weeks after release were excellent, and definately the most fun I have had on any MMO to date. It is a shame that it was all taken away from us.

But great MMO experiences such as Pre-CU SWG are not meant to last.

Atleast not while SOE is still around.

Anobaca

 Yes SWG was mt first mmorpg and to be honest never knew what a mmo was before that. I felt so stupid I know they are no were near as close in style but the game I played before swg was elders scrolls 3. In that game you could be attacked by things in the water so when I got stuck on the island between tryena and coronet  (verini island I believe) because the mission I had for it did not spawn. So I did not want to try and swim back to coronet because I thought I would be attacked in the water. Some were along the way I pissed off a couple corsecs that were there and they killed me. On thebright side I respawned in tryena and meet som great online friends. On the other hand I was and still am the biggest dork after all the second dumbest thing I did was killing my self doing power boost with less then half a mind bar and getting a 3rd cap death

 

 

 I never thought I would forget the name of that island wow sucks to get older.

rejad

I think part of the strong sense of betrayal from the SWG is the fact that most of them seem to have been MMO virgins and were not regular gamers when they started playing the game.  To me its really just another game.

However it had and still has a lot of features I like.  I would still be playing it save that instead of continuing to improve the NGE they've settled on their instanced raiding WoW-clone model.  Why pay for a buggy, laggy, second-rate version of a game that costs the same and does it a thousand times better?

Gozzar

was my first.. but I really like the idea of Star Wars as a mmo.. and skill based insted of level..  cheers!

permanent1

 What i find funny is that every game goes to the class based system when so many prefer the skillbased systems, that tells me one thing that with class based they prefer it because it takes less dev time and saves them money which as we all know is all they care about..but someone needs to take a risk and go with a skill based system then they will see people flock in if done right i would be there i loved the old system.

rejad

Originally posted by permanent1


 What i find funny is that every game goes to the class based system when so many prefer the skillbased systems, that tells me one thing that with class based they prefer it because it takes less dev time and saves them money which as we all know is all they care about..but someone needs to take a risk and go with a skill based system then they will see people flock in if done right i would be there i loved the old system.

We don't know if the majority of players prefer it.  We do know a significant number of forum posters do.  And since only like 10% or something of game players ever both to even register to the forums of their game, we cannot say that a consensus on a forum means, well, squat.  Unfortunate.

cabal001

Originally posted by rejad

Originally posted by permanent1


 What i find funny is that every game goes to the class based system when so many prefer the skillbased systems, that tells me one thing that with class based they prefer it because it takes less dev time and saves them money which as we all know is all they care about..but someone needs to take a risk and go with a skill based system then they will see people flock in if done right i would be there i loved the old system.

We don't know if the majority of players prefer it.  We do know a significant number of forum posters do.  And since only like 10% or something of game players ever both to even register to the forums of their game, we cannot say that a consensus on a forum means, well, squat.  Unfortunate.

considering there are more people in forums griping about it than actually playing it...yes i would say more prefer the old style

portallzaine

yes it was my first A friend had told me about it just after release and I hunted down a copy and held onto it for 1 week until the cable guy fiiinally came by to hook up my internet haha I had read the manual backwards and forwards by then so finally getting into game was the best. I believe I drank a bottle of vodka that night and just ran around trying to figure everything out. It was pretty late at night when I finally was able to log on so needless to say, there werent that many live peeps out and about. I started in Mos Entha as well so it was low pop too. I remember wandering around, killing some Ryll and worrts and walking up to npcs and wondering "now, how do I know what a real player will look like" lol I guess its not hard to tell that I was an mmo newb

I finally saw a blue dot on my radar, something of which Id never seen before, and headed in that direction which lead me to the entha med center. there, sitting on the ground, was a lovely blue twillek by the name of Serinde Feeling that maybe I had actually found a real live person (yes i was excited.... remember... vodka ) I asked the question ... "are you a real person?" hahahahahah needless to say, she got a real kick outa that. she showed me around the game a bit. helped me find a vendor that held my first purchase, a full set of chiten armor aaaah those days. we ended up keeping in touch and joining the same guild. from then on until CU we had soooo much fun together. I do miss it deeply =( /sigh

greenstumps

Wss my third mmorpg I got addicted to after Planetside and EVE, great year for mmorpgs and I picked up 3 all withing 2 months or so.

xPaladin

Originally posted by rejad


I think part of the strong sense of betrayal from the SWG is the fact that most of them seem to have been MMO virgins and were not regular gamers when they started playing the game.  To me its really just another game.
However it had and still has a lot of features I like.  I would still be playing it save that instead of continuing to improve the NGE they've settled on their instanced raiding WoW-clone model.  Why pay for a buggy, laggy, second-rate version of a game that costs the same and does it a thousand times better?

I get what you're saying and don't necessarily disagree. Maybe a lot of folks in SWG were new to MMOs, but I knew there were a lot of MMO vets hanging around and it caught them by surprise. Myself, for example. When the NGE rolled out I remember having a pretty grand feeling of "what the fuck" the entire first day I was playing around with it. My initial feeling with the game was that it was crap and there was absolutely no way I could pay for such garbage. I remember being so very let down by how terrible it was.

In truth, I took the CU fairly well though it did wreck a lot of crafters. I could see where they wanted to go with that idea and, for the most part, they kept the game's core dynamics intact. I might not have been against the NGE idea if it (a) didn't wipe out most of the community classes and (b) actually worked like Battlefront as they wanted it to. They just managed to completely destroy the game.

Finally, speaking as an intermediate programmer, I couldn't see how something like this would've ever been released. I still don't fully understand it to this day, even after all the rhetoric and apologies. I still wonder what the fuck these people were thinking from the onset.

Shivah

It was my first, one of my buds and his roomie had it, having no PC i'd hang out and watch, dreaming of my smuggler to be. Once I got on it was like crack, without the jobloss and carjacking. Never did get to smuggle or even have working specials (for smug or pist) but i stayed with it anyway. All that game needed was bug fixes and content, I'll never understand how they couldn't see that.

Evilsam

SWG was the the forth mmorpg that I devoted a lot of time to

 Started out with The Realm,then UO went from UO to AC and AC2.Got in the SWG beta and played to CU.

 My favorites (to date) were AC and SWG.AC untill the third party programs and bots killed it (for me).SWG untill CU-NGE took away the basic core game play and the community away.

 I was one of the people that never even tried for a jedi slot in SWG.I didn't really even want to be a jedi.

 I had a Master Pistoleer/Master C-H and a Master Arch/merchant with a little droid eng.And was happy playing those two accounts.To me it was about a community that worked together.A lot of my Pistoleers skills didn't seem to work properly (or at all) but I still had fun playing it.

If they had fixed the bugs and added some content,like some of what they have post NGE and had it working properly, I would be in-game now instead of posting this.As i'm sure would be over 100,000 other people that are trying to play a game that just seems lacking in features that Sony/LA gave us a taste of and then slapped us away from the table.

Evilsam and Kitre on Lowca server

Fishermage

It was my first 3D Graphics MMO, but I played Simutronics textbased Dragonrealms before that for over two years (maybe three, hard to remember how long). I also tried Gemstone and their Xena game.

Left due to life issues not very long after SWG was announced.

rejad

Originally posted by xPaladin


 
Originally posted by rejad


I think part of the strong sense of betrayal from the SWG is the fact that most of them seem to have been MMO virgins and were not regular gamers when they started playing the game.  To me its really just another game.
However it had and still has a lot of features I like.  I would still be playing it save that instead of continuing to improve the NGE they've settled on their instanced raiding WoW-clone model.  Why pay for a buggy, laggy, second-rate version of a game that costs the same and does it a thousand times better?

I get what you're saying and don't necessarily disagree. Maybe a lot of folks in SWG were new to MMOs, but I knew there were a lot of MMO vets hanging around and it caught them by surprise. Myself, for example. When the NGE rolled out I remember having a pretty grand feeling of "what the fuck" the entire first day I was playing around with it. My initial feeling with the game was that it was crap and there was absolutely no way I could pay for such garbage. I remember being so very let down by how terrible it was.

 

In truth, I took the CU fairly well though it did wreck a lot of crafters. I could see where they wanted to go with that idea and, for the most part, they kept the game's core dynamics intact. I might not have been against the NGE idea if it (a) didn't wipe out most of the community classes and (b) actually worked like Battlefront as they wanted it to. They just managed to completely destroy the game.

Finally, speaking as an intermediate programmer, I couldn't see how something like this would've ever been released. I still don't fully understand it to this day, even after all the rhetoric and apologies. I still wonder what the fuck these people were thinking from the onset.

The CU and constant nerfs never surprised me because I'd played EQ1, lol.  And the NGE, the first day I logged in I thought "someone with an MBA is responsible for this" and just sighed.  I've worked for some terrible companies before and that level of shooting themselves in the foot and then being indignant about it, and not losing their jobs over it, was something I've long been accustomed to.

gwoodup

My first and best love....which leads me to this:

I am one of those hateful, resentful, anti-SOE vets, just like a lot of you, HOWEVER...  I needed a Galaxies "fix" after being gone since NGE, so I downloaded the 14-day free trial and used it to sign in with one of my old accounts.  I have to say right up front that even though this is not the game we all bought into and loved, it is now actually a somewhat decent game.  I am having fun for once in this game (since pre-CU).  I am a Commando and I am currently doing the new Beast Master Prof (that ANYONE can do!) and I find it to be WORLDS more than WoW's Hunter Profession; WAY more diverse (I currently RIDE A RANCOR as a mount) and way more the way the old game used to be. 

The population IS low but do I see noobs coming in all the time.  I see this game as actually being close to what it was pre-CU/NGE.  With a few modifications to the targeting system, it is back to the way it was targeting-wise.  The missions are now way more robust and actually are fun to accomplish.  They make more sense now and a LOT less running around, your next leg of the mission comes via comlink and you go right on with it.  Old player towns are gone (a lot of them) and have been put back into the owner's datapad so land is freed up.  The expertise system (talent points) is well thought-out and, I think, better thought-out than WoW's is.  Cool new ships and creatures, the ability to extract DNA and make mutated creatures either to mount or to join you in combat (and these things do WAY more damage than WoW pets and they are a lot more diverse)...  You can basically have ANYTHING as a pet andnearly anything as a mount.  Just the fact that you can mix DNA and make TOTALLY UNIQUE MUTANT pets/mounts is amazing. 

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/guides.vm?id=80134

I think it is safe to say that we have all "spanked" SOE/LA sufficiently and I have set aside my anger and resentment in order to enjoy the game I once loved.  NO, I do NOT work for LA or SOE and I am not a fanboi per se. 

I am just an abused Vet that needed a fix and found more than I expected when I came back.  The feeling is still there, the fun is still there, the nostalgia...  And so what if there are people that say there are "Jedi everywhere?"  There aren't, and the ones that are can be pwned quite easily if they're not specc'd right.  I personally do not see Jedi everywhere.  The profs are too diverse now and people are actually doing other profs.

BUT we need crafters.  "No decay," you say?  Well, that is what it is but we still need food for our pets.  We still need vehicles, structures, weapons, armor, etc.  We need SOMEONE to craft...  Download the 14-day trial and use your existing account to log in and run around for awhile (and longer than 5 minutes).  Modify your interface, get that stupid over-the-shoulder camera view off, resetup your targeting and off you go.  Things would really take off again if ya just came back.  Think about it, you know you miss it.  It's not like the game is offline, it's just...different.  And mostly in a good way.  You'll never know till you try.  And Smugglers can actually SMUGGLE now.  My alt is a Smuggler and it is a KICK!

Just my 2-cents worth.  Have a nice day.

P.S.  Rumor has it that people with SWG accounts that have been active for at least 1 year prior to the release of the game that LA/Bioware are doing get auto-invites to that game's beta....hmmm.   Hope that one's true!

Harleyrider

Gwoodup, you posted this same reply -- word for word -- in the "Latest Info on Bioware's MMO" thread. You may be sincere in your post, but it smacks of schilling and viral marketing. You might want to try another approach in the future.

ArcAngel3 posted a nice response to your view of the game in the Bioware MMO thread, so I'll post it below to provide balance to the sugar-coated view you have of the game.

ArcAngel3 said:

First of all, I don't see myself (or many others that post here) as hateful.  Saying "buyer beware" isn't a message of hate, rather it's one of conern for other game players. 

Second, your post reads as an advertisement for the NGE, not as someone sharing their experience upon returning to the game.  What I mean by that is, you spend a lot of time trying to point out that SWG is like WoW, but better than WoW.  That's pure SOE marketting speak.

More marketting speak is that the missions are more "robust."  If I had a nickel for every time SOE said they were making the game more "robust" I'd have enough to take the mrs. out for a fancy dinner tonight.

More marketting speak is that the game is "almost like pre-cu!"  First off, that's pure "get the vets back" marketting.  Second, it's b.s..  Did they bring back all of the 20 plus deleted professions?  No, of course they didn't.  Did they bring back the skill system instead of levels?  No, of course they didn't.  Is the game still loot based rendering many crafters useless?  Yes, of course it is.  Is the game still a hyper-kinetically-paced attempt to have an MMO fps?  Yes, of course it is.  And no, the target lock option is nothing like the old combat system, at all.  It doesn't feel the same, is doesn't look the same, it doesn't play the same because...it's not the same.

As for the pitch to come and try out all the neat mutant pets, did you know that once people figured out how to work with the mutant system they nerfed it, once again pissing a lot of people off?

As for the new missions or heroic instances, you know there are some serious bugs that make at least one of them unable to complete don't you?

 Also if you're not marketting for SOE, why this line: "things would really take off again if ya just came back, think about it you know you miss it."  Tbh, that sounds more than anything like a drug pusher trying to hook someone whose been clean for a while.

As for smugglers actually smuggling, did you get the dev post saying "smugglers will not be given glorified delivery missions".  What are the smuggling missions?  Pick up something and deliver it somewhere.  Along the way some dudes standing in the middle of nowhere might shoot you.  If that's not a glorified delivery mission, what is?

Jedi are not everywhere you say, are you kidding?

And did you really say people need weaponsmiths?  Loot drop weapons are still superior to crafted weapons, so crafted weapons and weaponsmiths remain useless.

If you don't work for SOE, which frankly I'm not sure I believe in light of the nature of your post and their history of outright lying to customers, why are you saying all these things that are blatant marketting attempts and at times not even an accurate reflection of the game as it is?

My message to SOE a few months ago, would have been if you really want vets back, stop trying to mislead them with bogus marketting, and stop giving them broken bits and pieces of their game back over the course of 2 years.  If you were really sorry for the NGE, as Smed said, you would have instituted classic servers a long time ago. 

Now, however, my message to SOE would be, stop screwing with the StarWars IP and let it go.  You've done enough damage by now.  Just stop.